Progression
by Blinded Moon
Summary: A fixation. A meeting. A friendship. A love. Time passes, and Theodore Nott records the moments that created, broke, and put back together his heart. Slash of the Theodore/Seamus variety.
1. 1 to 5

**Progression**

Notes: First of all, this story was inspired by the many lovely (and similar) works of Teh Kiwi (Mugglenet)/Tastes of Ink (LJ). I probably would not have been drawn to this pairing if Teh Kiwi/Tastes of Ink hadn't been so masterful in his or her writing, so I would like to thank him or her for the inspiration, and if you like this story, look that author up!

Secondly, this story was written with the Fanfiction 100 template, despite me not being a member of the group. Fanfiction 100 is basically a Livejournal group that has a list of 100 titles in a neat and organized table, and you are basically challenged to write 100 drabbles, one per title. To switch things up, though, instead of going in order and going from left to right, I am going from top to bottom (starting with 001 then 006 then 011, etc). For more information, see community./fanfic100/profile.

Finally, each chapter will be composed of 5 drabbles rather than just 1, as it kind of irritates me when I read drabble collections and I have to click "next chapter" like 50 times…

Summary: A fixation. A meeting. A friendship. A love. Time passes, and Theodore Nott records the moments that created, broke, and put back together his heart. Slash of the Theodore/Seamus variety.

Progression

Beginnings

I remember. It was the first day of my first year of Hogwarts. I was sitting in a compartment with some other first years which my father had forced me to sit with. They seemed nice to me, or maybe they just wanted to suck up. Whatever, I was eleven. I clearly remember you opening the compartment door, your sweet face blushing and your signature smile on your face, a beacon of a good year to come, so I thought.

"Hallo, all," you said nicely. Nobody responded but you continued anyway. "You all first years? I've been looking for some, everyone here's so big. The name's Seamus Finnegan. Mind if I sit here and we can get to know each other some?"

When I introduce myself to strangers, I'm always so shy, unable to conquer my fear of being judged immediately. But even when you were at the ripe young age of eleven, you were more charming than most adults I've met. Draco was the only one who spoke up, telling you to leave. Everyone else just stared coldly at you. Even me.

You shrugged, turned around, and walked out with as much of a smile as when you came in. I heard the train's engine start and, after sitting around and doing nothing for ten years, I began to move towards my destiny.

Hours

Everything at Hogwarts was measured in hours. Each class was an hour long. Each meal was an hour long. Draco adapted this schedule even more, scheduling an hour of homework and an hour of "socializing" every night for himself. We all followed suit. He probably intended us to. Soon his schedules expanded, and he learned a nifty charm to make the words larger so we could all see from our beds. One hour studying, one hour napping, one hour walking the corridors, one hour exploring the grounds. Each hour the same.

Except for sometimes in Potion and sometimes walking the corridors when I'd see you and something in me rose slowly through my chest and up to my head until you disappeared and it went out my ears then back to the hours. My solstice was that it might happen again. Maybe.

Red

You were always wearing red. After all, it was a Gryffindor color. I overheard you telling someone that you that gold was for sissies and that you'd only wear red. I went back to my dormitory and tore up every garment of mine that had the color gold on it. Zabini was in the dorm then, but didn't question my strange fit, didn't go "Theodore, what's wrong with you" or "Stop that nonsense." Slytherins know when to remain silent.

It was a strange moment, then. I didn't know, yet, of my feelings for you. I stared at all of the torn gold on the floor and cursed myself for letting a foolish saying get the best of me. Zabini turned a page in his book. I was about to ask him the spell for repairing broken things, but I heard myself instead asking the spell for fire. The gold turned to a deep orange, which was close enough to red to make my mind giddy. Soon, though, the strange black smoke numbed me, and red and black danced in front of my eyelids marvelously.

Purple

I woke up in the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey asked a few skeptical questions, suspicious of substance abuse, but I just did a pouty face and claimed that I was a naïve first year who didn't quite understand the fire charm (my father told me to always play up my youth until I was thirteen).

On my right was Dean Thomas, who I only knew then as a friend of yours. I had trouble breathing, somehow, at the thought of you coming to visit him. You did.

You talked with him for a few moments about Quidditch, the Weasley twins, Harry Potter, Dungbombs, whatever else. All I remember from that was watching the two of you smile together and laugh and make jokes and thinking that I'll never know that kind of friendship.

Then you looked at me and I can't really put how I felt on paper because there aren't any words, I suppose.

"Madam Pomfrey, Theodore looks a little purple," he said plainly, as if I were some kind of object. I expected you to say it with disgust, for I was one of those who rejected you on the first day. But you were light, conversational. Madam Pomfrey came to look at me and I watched you go.

Friends

Malfoy wasn't nice, but he had that quality which made you want to follow him around everywhere and obey everything he said. And, other than receiving insults once in awhile, it was easy to be his friend. It was easy to laugh at all of his jokes and obey all of his hours and such.

Crabbe and Goyle weren't very smart, but didn't deserve all of the shit Malfoy gave them. But who was going to stand up for them anyway? They were kind of helpless. I never seemed to know how they felt, if they felt at all.

Zabini was tougher. He and I had actual conversations and I felt like he was more of a "friend" than anyone else. But with that came a price, the price that he knew me more than the others, that he observed me and wondered why my eyes would drift to you in Potions or in the Great Hall.

And then there was you, but that didn't count.


	2. 6 to 10

Teammates

By then, it was the winter of our first year. It snowed, and then the snow melted, and then it snowed again, and the snow melted. I loved it. I loved breaking free from the Slytherin Common Room at night to run around through the powder, loved catching it on my tongue, loved falling back into piles of it, loved staring alone at the sky from there, loved slowly pretending I was melting. There's something different about the air, about the sky, about the night when there's snow on the ground.

And when I was alone, I could think about you and not feel guilty.

I wasn't sure exactly how I felt, anyway. I was eleven, for God's sake. Sitting there in the snow, though, my mind would wander and I'd think about your smile. It was strange to me, but in the snow, it was normal. Life was a game, an exciting one, and you and I were teammates, laughing and fighting others. We always won in the snow.

We still hadn't had our first conversation.

Sunrise

I woke up every morning with light streaming into the dorm but the sun didn't seem to rise until I saw you at breakfast. You, eating pancakes. You, talking to Dean Thomas. You, laughing to something Lavender Brown said. And one day that winter as I watched you butter your toast, I realized that if you looked over here, all you'd see would be the ghost of me. Me, failing to make good conversation. Me, with a pale, sunken features. Me, a disgusting Slytherin.

So that day, I stood up near the end of the meal and threw myself away. I walked across the glistening tile of the Great Hall towards you at the Gryffindor table. I don't know whether or not you remember this. I hope you don't.

You looked up at me, I remember. All of your friends stared at me with disgust, but you were different. The sun hit your face and my heart stopped. I opened my mouth to say something, but no such luck. I walked away and blushed as your friends laughed, but you just watched me go, wondering.

Smell

That morning was Double Potions. I enjoyed Potions quite a lot, but I was more nervous than ever, with both the Gryffindors and the Slytherins giving me strange looks. Shock hit me, though, when you came and sat down next to me. You didn't look at me or give any signs of recognition, but you sat there. I didn't feel connected to my body.

We received our assignments and I began working more diligently than ever, as if the perfect potion would earn your friendship. However, I cut my finger chopping some root, and I've never been good with blood. I began gasping for air and that's when you noticed. You approached and took my hand in yours, examining the cut. I looked down at the potion and realized that I'd forgotten to stir. Brown fumes began to rise, and though you began to cough at them, I thought that the smell was delicious. I smiled and you gave me a quizzical look. I heard you call Professor Snape before I collapsed, my head falling straight into my boiling cauldron.

Shapes

I woke up near twilight and the familiar background of the Hospital Wing met my blurry eyes. My face felt like it was burning and I reached up to feel strangely shaped bumps all over my cheeks, my nose, my forehead. I groaned and hoped this wouldn't have any lasting effects. "And to think I used to like Potions," I muttered to myself.

"Well I don't know why you liked it in the first place," your teasing voice sang. I gasped, realizing that you were there next to me, looking at the strange, deformed shapes on my skin. I wasn't quite sure how to respond. Luckily, you did it for me.

"I'm Seamus," you said out of politeness, though I already knew your name. You put out your hand and I took it, hoping the bumps weren't contagious.

"I'm Theodore," I said quietly.

"Theodore?? That's silly. I'm gonna call you Theo. Is that alright?"

I smiled, calmed by your friendliness. "That's fine."

Star

Now when I saw you while making hourly rounds, you gave a smile or a wave, which I returned shyly. Draco harassed me about it for awhile, but he got over it. He gets over everything with some time.

There was, though, the house barrier. No matter how kind you were or no matter how much I wanted to be close to you, I was still a Slytherin and you were still a Gryffindor. It's absurd to look back and think about how we were so separated by the will of a faded hat. I often saw your Gryffindor friends looking at me with disgust whenever you looked at me with kindness, as if I were worse than Draco, as if my wanting to be friends were as bad as his wanting to be enemies. Just being acquaintances then broke boundaries.

You weren't just a star in the night sky anymore, twinkling beautifully out of reach. Now your light was closer, warmer.


	3. 11 to 15

Water

The weather grew harsher as the year continued and I watched the lake go from water to ice. Zabini would always wonder why I stood with my nose pressed against the dorm window, staring at the water, willing it to unfreeze, to warm, to change, to do the impossible and conquer nature. When I was fighting to befriend you, the water was giving up. It pulled me down into it, slowly and surely.

I went home for winter break, my cheeks rosy when I embraced my mother and father. I excitedly told them about all of my friends, you particularly. When my father asked what house you were in and I told him, he raised his hand as if he would hit me. My mother screamed and he stopped, but the true damage was done. I sat in my room for the whole day on Christmas. A house elf dropped my gifts at the door. A little light inside of me prayed that somehow, on one of the tags, your name would appear.

I cried when it didn't. The water seeped down my cheeks and onto the pillow I was pulverizing. You repulsed me, you made my family hate me, you made me hate myself, you made none of the things that I used to love matter. But still, I couldn't resist you.

Breakfast

I wasn't sure how exactly to treat you when I returned to Hogwarts, bruised. Should I stay close to you or should I try and shut you out of my life completely, hoping to retain a bit of normality? You answered that question for me when you came up to the Slytherin table at breakfast. There was a bit of cream cheese on your chin and you spoke to me.

"How was your holiday?" you asked. I blushed and felt the eyes of the Slytherins around me.

"It was…" I started. Shouldn't I say good? Shouldn't I lie? Shouldn't I make pleasant conversation? "…horrible."

"What? Why?"

_I missed you_.

"Oh, nothing. Did you stay here over break?"

"Yeah, it was so cool with the school being like almost empty. You could run around the hallways and scream and nobody'd really care."

The thought of him doing that made me laugh. "I think I'll stay next year."

"You should. We'll keep each other company."

Not even the disapproving glare of my housemates could knock the smile off of my face as he walked away.

Winter

The dead of February may have buried many in sorrow but that was when we grew closer. We kept each other warm with conversations and study hours. I helped you with History of Magic and you helped me with Defense Against the Dark Arts. I forgot how my family felt about you, because whenever we were together, everything outside of us seemed to go away. I was still eleven years old and I still didn't understand the power of love and the power of hate.

I did understand, though, that I wanted you to be sleeping in the bed next to mine at night so I could whisper to you until late hours and see you smile when you awoke. I did understand that I wanted everyone in Slytherin to like you and everyone in Gryffindor to like me so we could all be friends and we could all be happy. I did understand that the best times of my first year at Hogwarts were times that it was just you and me, whether we were watching the snowflakes fall or laughing about Professor Quirrell or whispering our secrets.

For some reason, when winter ended, I suddenly felt empty. When before you had me to sit with in the library, now you had all of your Gryffindor friends to accompany you as you ran through the fields and stared at the sunlight. It's not that you disappeared when the ice melted; you just seemed to fade a bit.

Rain

It was a warm day in April but it was raining. It was raining hard. You could see it out the library. You could hear it singing when it hit the rooftops. You and I were sitting in a corner of the library, unable to do work, silently staring out the window.

Rain seemed to put some damper on everyone in your House. Gryffindors on a whole tend to see the rain and then fall right back into bed for the rest of the day. You, however, made me love the rain. It meant I had you all to myself

I was about to open my mouth to say something trivial, something witty, something conversational, something useless when I paused and saw your face. It was so beautiful with the cloud's solemn silver light illuminating your sorrow and your desperation for brighter beams. You wanted your Gryffindor friends. You wanted to be excited. You wanted to scream with laughter. You wanted everything I could not give you.

"Sorry," I whispered.

You looked at me, about to ask why, but you seemed to realize it. You smiled and reached over to ruffle my hair. I blushed.

Broken

I forgot to check the calendars, so I didn't realize until after my last final was over that summer was here. Joy was in the air, for who could be sad that three months of blissful freedom had arrived?

Well, other than me, of course.

What was I supposed to do for three months without you? Three months where I would shiver at every passing moment despite the sunlight's power. Three months where I would stare at the sky and know that somewhere, you were happy while I was not. Three months broken until I could come back and maybe be fixed.

I sought you out on the Hogwarts express on our return trip. I was so happy when I saw your bright face in the compartment, but you were not alone. You were laughing at some joke Dean Thomas made. Your Gryffindor friends. The ones who hated me.

I didn't say goodbye to you that year. It took all I had and more to hold the tears until I was alone in my high-ceilinged bedroom.


End file.
